Elemental
by jumptheshark
Summary: When Edward's girlfriend dumps him and walks out, leaving him in a part of town he doesn't know very well, he just wants to get drunk. He goes into the nearest bar, and there he meets the girl who's going to turn his life around.
1. Chapter 1

**Elemental - I**

And just like that, it was over.

Tanya turned away, and that waist-to-hip ratio that used to have me awarding myself congratulatory medals because I knew "I'm tapping _that_", swayed away from me, as she walked out of my periphery.

Did I have a broken heart? To be honest, no. But sorely damaged ego? Hell, yeah.

She was a bitch, and I'd played Petruchio to her Katherine, over-looking our unsuitability for the charms of her spectacular and unreal tits, and for the way she made an about-turn once I got her alone. A harpy in public, behind closed doors she was even more of one. But once I got her horizontal, with her mouth occupied in something other than complaints and whining, she had a body that could have stopped Casanova roaming, and the supple agility of a jungle cat. Our entanglement was too corrosive to last, and I knew that, I_ knew_ it, but crap - what now? Back to dull girls who always simpered nice things because they wanted everybody to like them?

Tonight I'd taken Tanya for lobster and basil butter at a very highly reviewed eatery, and listened to four courses of her usual vitriol before she dumped me and stalked off on her five-inch stilletoes, costing me enough money to put a teenager through university. Churlishly, I figured she could find a cab all by herself, and I'd explore the waterfront area, which I wasn't too familiar with.

After ambling for a couple of blocks, I stopped in front of a bar with the mysterious, made-up sounding name of Anthemusa, which is a bloody stupid thing to call a bar. Covered in shells, it was tacky and unappealing, but it _was_ a bar, and that meant it would meet my requirements for the evening, which were alcohol. I planned to imbibe glass after glass until I reached either self-enlightenment, or self-obliteration. I wouldn't have to think about Tanya until I came around, and that wouldn't be for days. _Days_.

Once inside I did actually wonder why I'd bothered walking through the door when I discovered the interior was just as bad as the exterior. The walls were covered in some sort of veneer that looked like stone, so the whole place had the appearance of a kind of undersea grotto, with blue and green lights, for God's sake. A pump system ensured that the walls were glistening and gleaming with a constant flow of water drizzling down them. What Poseiden-minded individual had dreamed up this bad-taste nightmare? It was explosively kitsch. But fuck, there was seating, there was a counter, and there were racks of bottles. If kitsch offered beer and whiskey, I could do kitsch.

The bar was shell encrusted too, faintly glowing with all the nacre. I eased myself onto a stool and nodded to the bartender, who sloshed dark liquid into a tumbler and thrust it at me without bothering to ask what I wanted.

"We serve rum and ale, that's all. First one's on the house," he said, and I don't have a taste for rum, never have, but I raised my glass and drained it anyway.

"Ah," he said, "It's like is it?" and refilled my glass. I drank a second, and a third without pausing for breath, and then asked for a beer.

"You're drinking with intent. That always means woman trouble," the bartender remarked, opening a bottle for me. I nodded grimly, but I wasn't ready to talk, so I turned and took stock of my surroundings. The sea theme had been taken to its absolute extreme in here, certainly. It couldn't have been more briny. Odd bits of nets hung from the ceilings, along with anchors, and there were items of miscellany from ships - lanterns, bells, the brass surrounds from portholes - strewn about. Under the pervasive green light it was all quite eerie, but fuck - I didn't care. I was there to get drunk.

Another shot of rum, and another beer later, my angst over Tanya's abrupt departure was mellowing into a floaty sort of relief. It wasn't as if I'd ever envisaged myself taking her home to meet my parents. It wasn't as if I'd ever entertained the thought of little Tanya-Edwards scampering about on a daisy-strewn lawn under an apple tree behind a white picket fence. It wasn't as if I'd even actually _liked_ her. I told the sympathetic barman my whole sorry tale. He had dirty blond hair and a smooth face, but eyes that looked like he'd seen a lot. I privately named him Captain Sparrow, even though he didn't look anything like a pirate. I figured he needed a seafaring name. He listened to all my venting and nodded sagely, polishing glasses and holding them up to the light, then polishing them again. They were very clean glasses. Good riddance to Tanya, and another beer thanks, my good friend Jack.

And that's when I saw _her_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Elemental II**

At the end of the bar, amongst fronds and strings of pearls, a girl sat still as a statue. She was blueish, like everything in this peculiar place, and spookily beautiful. How long had she been there? Why hadn't I noticed her? Had she heard all my self-pitying complaining?

"Hello there," I said, and I prided myself on not leering, because of all the things I am, I hope outright asshole is not one of them, "Are you here for the ambience?"

She didn't deign to answer, and I wished I could undrink some of the rum. And ale. I was probably coming across as a thoroughly sodden Lothario.

"Sorry," I mumbled, and I expected that my overture had been rejected, and quite rightly too, but she surprised me.

"My sisters sing here. I always come and watch them," she said. My ears pricked up. God, she had a lovely voice. I knew I was drunk, but I could still tell the difference between an upright piano and a grand blindfolded, and I could hear a glorious timbre in her tone.

"There's live music?" I asked.

She gestured to the wall beside her, and I saw a poster there, advertising "Tempting Ulysses". Oh, there was no end to the nautical references here. A bunch of sirens, no doubt.

"Are they a vocal group?" I asked, and she nodded.

"Why don't you sing with them too?"

She smiled. "I will, one of these days. Once I get the nerve."

She really was very, very pretty, and it wasn't because I was wearing beer-goggles. But there was no hint whatsoever of flirtatiousness in her demeanor, so there wouldn't be in mine. Tonight I'd broken up with my girlfriend, and only an unscrupulous rogue would try and pick up somebody else to take home and have rebound sex with, right? Right. So put the neverfail Cullen charm in a box with the lid clearly marked "do-not-open", and listen to the music and leave this girl alone, and don't be a douche. Right. Friendly but not interested, that was my script.

"When do they start?" I asked.

"Any time soon," she said.

Right.

I turned my back on the pretty girl and faced the stage opposite the bar for about five difficult minutes. I was being a bit discourteous for turning my back on her, but I knew I would be a whole lot discourteous if I kept facing her and then opened my stupid and inebriated mouth to say something that would be making a pass. Thank God the lights came up then, and two girls stepped out onto the stage.

The sisters? Oh, Jesus, they were gorgeous. Three girls this beautiful in one family?

I closed my eyes, because that made things easier. Some violin music came out of the speakers, introducing a mournful refrain, and those girls sang.

I'm a classically trained pianist, and I know even temperament to the point that anything outside absolute and relative pitch makes the hairs on my neck prickle - and these girls were singing in microtones. They were making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up like a fucking Rhodesian ridgeback. All twelve notes of the western octave were acknowledged, then swerved from, then returned to, then diverged from... Jesus. They sang in - what? Maqamat?

I hoped Jack Sparrow would be there to catch me when I fell over, because the pitchings of the music were as sloping as the pitchings of a deck in high seas, and I had lost all sense of solid ground. I couldn't even tell whether or not I was upright. Balance is held in the ear, and those girls and their songs took my sense of balance and upturned it.

And that wasn't all. The lyrics were about love. Love found, love lost, love returned, love unrequited, love elevated. Love found shining amidst the squalor of dashed hopes. Love awash in waves surging beneath the wild moon's relentless and inescapable call. Love ground beneath the heel of disdain and superb indifference. Love withheld from the deserving, who seek only to at least once catch a glimpse of its many splendors.

Quite forgetting I'd never loved Tanya, and quite lamentably drunk, it was all too much for me.

"Uh, guess I'm headingoffnow, maybe catch up withyouagain sometime?" I mumbled to the girl, while lurching onto my feet.

"Perhaps," she answered, polite but non-committal. Goodnight sweet sea-nymph.

It can be dangerous in the port district, but with the blessing God sometimes awards to the intoxicated I hailed a cab and got home uneventfully, tipping the guy a fifty. It's not every day you get liberated from a statuesque bombshell of a shrew who came by her lips and hips and tits medically, when really, she would have been outwardly beautiful without all that intervention. Inwardly - well, let's just say that when science can offer personality enhancement I'm putting her name forward. And it's not every day you meet a serene and pretty girl who doesn't seem to judge you even when you're dribbling beer down your chin, and whose sisters sing under the most apt, if corny, moniker anyone ever thought of. What a night - I'd have paid him double if I'd had the cash.


	3. Chapter 3

**Elemental III**

A week later I was back at the faux underwater cave, unable to stay away, and the mystery girl was there. This time I was counting my drinks and sticking to a limit.

"I'm sorry I didn't get to introduce myself last week, my name is Edward Cullen. Please let me apologize for the state I was in then - I assure you I don't normally get anywhere that drunk. It was deplorable," I said, hand held out.

"I'm Isabella," she replied, her voice a carillon.

She took my hand, and her grip was cool and light, but not limp. She definitely returned the clasp. Perhaps I hadn't conducted myself quite so badly as I'd thought?

"Are your sisters singing again tonight?" I asked, and she nodded.

"Do they have any recordings? Could I buy a cd?"

She shook her head. "No, they haven't recorded. It's all very amateur really. They don't even perform anywhere else. This is sort of a family business - our uncle owns the place and they sing every week, and that's about it."

We were both quiet as the girls began their performance, and I sat spellbound for an hour, caught in gossamer threads of pure aural loveliness.

"So - their name is a mythology reference - right?" I asked Isabella after they finished, having done my homework during dark lonely hours at home during the week. "And the name of this bar is too? I don't know why it's not better frequented, because anyone hearing them would be lured to come back again and again. May I say, though, and I certainly don't want to tread on any toes here - but some potential patrons could find the decor a little _offputting_."

I smiled as I said this, so as to soften the implied criticism, and I gestured vaguely at all the blue. And green. And turquoise. And indigo.

Isabella smiled serenely back and she said, "The decor stays. It's a themed bar - you know, like somewhere might have a jungle theme, or a Hollywood glamor theme. This has an _ocean_ theme."

In other words, Cullen, you wanker, shut the fuck up, but said five thousand times more nicely.

I talked to her and she didn't tell me much, while I told her all about my pathetic life, my over-achieving parents, the family wealth I didn't want to be a part of, the expensive education I was pissing down the drain by not practicing the law I qualified for.

"So what do you do?" she inquired.

I told her the truth, that I was an aspiring composer. A penniless aspiring composer whose work was not listened to, because of my preference to get on with composing it rather than flogging it around agents and publishers. This part was where girls would normally start making excuses to sign out of the conversation, but Isabella seemed to think I'd said something interesting, and I was encouraged to keep talking. I even confessed I was working on a libretto.

Jack meanwhile was offering me rum, which I declined, as I'd driven here tonight and intended to drive home. I gauged how long I'd have before Isabella's face froze into boredom, and made sure I stopped a good ten minutes before then, wished her a friendly goodnight, and exited stage left.

After four weeks, I'd made four visits to Anthemusa, to see Isabella. Five weeks, five visits. I couldn't seem to stop going. She opened up and talked to me a lot, revealing herself to be outgoing and responsive, and all the while, not a single negative word ever passed her lips. I began to suspect that she was the sweetest person I'd ever met. What a novelty.

Sixth week. I was going to ask her out.

"Isabella, will you have dinner with me? I've got my car, and we can aim to be back in time to hear your sisters."

She said yes. She said yes! Jack Sparrow grumbled warningly at her for some reason, and I glared at him, but she ignored him and placed her cool hand in mine.

"I really would prefer to go somewhere that's walking distance, if you don't mind," she said, in that beautiful voice, but I didn't mind at all, as she was at my side.

"Your bartender didn't seem too happy about you coming with me," I commented.

"He's just keeping an eye out," she shrugged. "He doesn't want us to stray too far."

We went to a seafood restaurant nearby and spent a couple of hours eating, laughing, and just generally enjoying each other's company. I was enjoying her company, anyway, and I was pretty damn sure it was two-way.

The next week we went a few blocks into the city to a Spanish restaurant and shared paella, more laughs, and some long glances. Christ, she was lovely. I couldn't think why I had ever wasted more than ten seconds on a ballbreaker like Tanya when Isabella had more grace in one finger than Tanya had in her whole body. The fact that I so recently felt turned on by somebody being spiteful, and by delivering rejoinders to an acid tongue now struck me as ridiculous. Isabella was gentle and delicate, and always spoke with consideration. She was supportive of my musical ambitions, whereas as Tanya had been derisive. I'd been an immature little boy only weeks ago, finding some sort of sick excitement in Tanya's verbal cruelty, and then fucking her hard to erase the hurt from her sneering. Now I felt decades older - but in a good way. I wanted to love and be loved by someone who saw me as a partner, not an adversary. Isabella had an essential _goodness_ that I craved to be around - if I believed in auras I reckoned the one shining around her would be clear and unflawed and steadfast.

In the car lot behind Anthemusa the night of the paella, I turned to her and swallowed deeply. How long had it been since we met? Was I allowed to kiss her? What was the etiquette here? I'd thrown Tanya face down on a bed within hours of meeting her but Isabella made me feel decent.

Her huge, trusting limpid eyes gazed at me in the light from the streetlamps and the harbor and she seemed breathless and uncertain. Christ, suddenly so was I. Slowly I leaned towards her, giving her every opportunity to turn away from me if this wasn't what she wanted, but she closed those lustrous eyes with a slow sweep of her elegant lashes, and allowed me to press my lips to hers for the first time - the first time of many, I hoped. She had the most extraordinary effect on me - normally with women I felt like a rampant, barely-contained monster, and Tanya had been an enabler who brought out the beast in me, but with Isabella I felt an ardor that was reverent and almost spiritual. I desperately wanted to make love to her, but I knew that when I did it would be with tenderness, and with a passion that didn't leave blue marks on her hips and bites on her neck.

When our tongues touched, it wasn't a rough and unruly penetration - it was sweet and eloquent, yet with a yearning promise. Isabella was the undoing of the me that Tanya engendered - the raw infant bawling with existential angst. The softness and surety of Isabella's kiss assured me that I had become a better man than I'd been before. The shy but pliant surrender of her lips made me sure I'd stay that way.

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Here's the thing. According to my stats, not one single person is reading this story. While I'm not surprised, I'm still disappointed. I think perhaps everyone has died, and I'm the last living person on earth, unaware of my vast aloneness and transmitting out into the void, trusting that even if my missives are received with indifference, they are still received.

Alternatively, there has been a block set up so that no-one can read my inflammatory words and ideas, because I am a threat to Western civilization. This seems more likely to me than the previous scenario.

Lastly the possibility I can't ignore is that... hold on to your hats folks because I'm about to get something-or-other... I DON'T EXIST. You're not reading anything, I neither speak nor write nor think nor breathe, and I'm more illusory than winged camels and starfish with caterpillar stripes, or a decent cup of coffee in a Californian diner.

Let me ponder on this awhile and get back to you. Or you could always get back to me.


	4. Chapter 4

**Elemental IV**

All week I was aflame with this new desire - soft and yet insistent, and almost fluttering, like snowfall. Saturday found me smiling at Jack Sparrow and refusing the rum he told me was complimentary. A few weeks ago I wouldn't have turned down free alcohol if my house was on fire and I needed to get back to save family members.

I had something different planned for this evening - a drive up into the mountains near where I lived, over an hour from the waterfront. Isabella gave me an inquisitive glance when I took the turnoff, but I promised her the best boulliabaise in the pacific northwest, and she smiled.

Our dinner was everything I had hoped it would be; the meal superb, the conversation scintillating, and Isabella simply breathtaking in every aspect. I wanted to take her home from the restaurant and make her my dessert, but it was still too soon. My libido these days was an ache that I found pleasant, it wasn't a snarling caged beast rattling the bars and demanding release. The perfect end to the perfect evening would be to kiss this girl I was falling hopelessly in love with, to drink in her scent and touch her hair, and at the very most slip my arms around her waist and hold her loosely enough that my dick wouldn't rear its head up to poke rudely at her belly.

We left the restaurant and I showed her into my car, and asked if she'd like to come to my house for coffee, assuring her that I'd drive her home immediately afterwards.

"That sounds perfect," she nodded, and I turned the steering wheel eastwards again, taking us up further into the mountains.

But after a few minutes, Isabella started to cough, and she didn't seem able to stop. I pulled over hurriedly.

"Isabella? What is it?"

To my horror, she began to claw at her mouth and neck. I undid my belt and reached for her, but she wasn't wearing anything constricting that I could loosen. The coughs turned to wheezing and gasping. Could there be something in her throat? Were her airways blocked somehow? Jesus Christ - was she allergic to something in the dinner? Was this anaphylaxis?

I threw myself out of the car and ran around to her side, pulling her out and laying her unceremoniously on the ground. She was conscious, and her eyes were pleading silently with me to help her. She looked shocked and terrified, and I had no idea what to do. Why the fuck hadn't I studied medicine, like my father wanted me to?

Calm, Cullen. Check her mouth for obstructions.

"Forgive me," I muttered, and her mouth was already open, as she was struggling to breathe. I put my finger in and scooped around, but there was nothing in there that there shouldn't be. I hauled her up and gave her a couple of short, hard taps between the shouder blades in case there was an obstruction in her throat, but there was was no change in the uneven rasping breaths. Despite dimly remembering hearing somewhere that the Heimlich Manouevre has been declared unsafe, it was the only other thing I could think of to do. I turned her so that her back was to my front, and put my arms firmly around her abdomen squeezing in an attempt to induce coughing. Nothing.

All this while I was silent, but I started to babble as I lifted her back into the car.

"Isabella, I don't know if you can hear me. We're not far from a hospital. It's only a little further up the road, perhaps fifteen minutes. We'll go straight to emergency, they'll see you immediately, everything's going to be fine. My father's a doctor there, and he's on duty tonight. You'll be in the best possible hands. I promise, I promise."

The engine purred to life and I was set to speed into the darkness of the forest around us, when Isabella's hand reached for my arm.

"Home," she gasped.

"Home? You have to go to hospital. I don't know what's happening to you, but it looks life-threatening. I can't take you home now," I said urgently.

"Home," she managed again, clutching my arm so tightly her nails were digging in to me. I ignored her, but she tried to wrench the wheel.

"Jesus, Isabella!"

I only just got the car back on the road when she unclasped her seatbelt, and opened her door.

"We're an hour from where you live!" I yelled in anguish, wondering what the hell was up with her. Then it occurred to me she might have some medical condition that she hadn't told me about, and she might have the necessary treatment or medication at home.

"Do you know what's happening to you? Is that why you have to go home?"

She nodded weakly, and flopped back down in her seat.

I was torn between what I thought I should do, and what she had asked me to do. Surely hospital was the best place for her to be right now? But she was mutely asking, pleading with her expression and her hand back on my forearm, and I reluctantly turned the car.

The drive back was harrowing. She had a couple of mild convulsions and I nearly turned back again, but each time she seemed to recover, though she was still slumped, and her ragged breath was still coming with a hoarseness that filled me with dread every time I heard it. I was way over the speed limit, and if my tires had any less traction we'd have been airborne. Each twist of the dark road made Isabella's head roll, and my heart lurch. Her eyes were open and glazed, unseeing, but I didn't dare stop again. If anything, I accelerated, driving faster than safety would allow.

At last the lights of the harbor were in view, and the familiar briny tang started to permeate the car's interior through the ventilation system. As if the sea air was able to revitalize her, Isabella started to murmur.

"Are we here?" she asked faintly.

"Nearly, darling, nearly. Hold on," I assured her, barely aware of the endearment. Actually, no, I was extremely conscious of it, even if it slipped out unintentionally. I hadn't had the chance to tell her how I felt about her yet, and tonight, with her so ill, it suddenly seemed vitally important for her to know. Yet how could I say anything, when she wasn't in any sort of state to receive it? My feelings would just have to wait.

I pulled in to the Anthemusa carlot before I noticed that the usual blue light wasn't emanating from every window. I checked the clock on the dashboard. Shit, _shit_! It was midnight - but they couldn't be closed!

Leaving Isabella in the car, I ran to the front door and started bashing on it, yelling. There was no plan B - Jack Sparrow just had to be there and open up, and he just had to know what to do with Isabella.

After only moments of pounding and shouting, I turned and looked back towards the car, and saw that the passenger side door was open. Shockingly, Isabella's slender form was walking away from the car, towards the pier. I had no idea how she found the strength to get up, but there was no time to wonder about it.

Calling her name, I ran after her, but she paid no attention. She must have been disorientated or maybe she was in some kind of somnambulistic state. I didn't know what the fuck was going on, but I couldn't catch up with her, and Isabella, my cherished, precious, ethereal Isabella, simply slipped from the end of the pier into the silent sea.

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Thank you to everyone who wrote to let me know I'm not a figment of my own imagination. I still suspect I am, though. I think, therefore I might be.

Chocolate would validate me.


	5. Chapter 5

**Elemental V**

I feel like I'm simultaneously in a movie and watching one. I'm observing this whole wide-screen panorama unfold from the safety of a cinema seat, with sensurround sound, and even smell-o-rama, while at the same time I'm physically present, and I can choose what happens next. It's a very exciting movie, and whatever action I choose to take right now will affect the outcome. However - CULLEN - IT'S NOT A FUCKING MOVIE, IT'S REALLY HAPPENING. In real life, someone you've spent the evening with doesn't walk off the end of a pier right in front of you, but that's where the comparison with real life and the movies ends. Tonight has already been a parade of surreality for me - fuck, the last few weeks have been nothing that I've ever experienced before, and now _God, motherfuck, Jesus, hell._

The movie has become a murky nightmare. I sprint and my feet don't touch the ground - I fly. Conversely my feet are leaden, my steps are agonizingly slow and entire lifetimes pass between each stride. Eons, even. Entire species have evolved and become extinct in the time it takes me to cover twenty yards.

Part of my brain has checked out altogether and thinks I should turn around and get back into my car and drive home. Then drink brandy out of the bottle until I'm so drunk my last conscious act will be hitting myself as hard as I can over the head with a blunt object. Part of my brain is calm and reasoning, reminding me that you're not supposed to dive into water with your shoes on. They will create drag and slow you down. Unless your watch is waterproof, take it off. Make sure you know the depth where you are diving because if it's shallow you can break your neck and end up a quadriplegic.

Another part of my brain is scanning urgently, looking for the precise place where Isabella fell. In seconds I'm at the edge, looking down. The water is inky and opaque, and isn't going to give up either secrets or maidens easily. Not even a trail of bubbles trails to the surface, to give me a course to navigate by. Shoes off, Jesus, how long has it been? I can't see a fucking thing down there, but without hesitation, I plunge.

The sea hits me like a brick wall, but its solid impact is momentary as I sink through, and I'm screwed from the outset - I literally can't see anything but a blanket of black. With adrenaline coursing through me I flail until my body goes into some sort of survival mode and commences a frog-kick, propelling me downwards. At least I think it's downwards. My arms reach and reach, and I want to scream but I can't open my mouth or the murderous sea will rush in and kill me. And I have no doubts that the sea's intentions towards me are murderous. Oh a sunny day I might enter her slowly, letting us both get used to the idea, but my entry of mine just now has been a brutal and fast invasion. The sea has decided to keep this perverse little human who simply leapt right in. I have no idea which way is up as the water feels heavier and heavier about me, and I understand that I never had a hope. Jesus, I wish I had even _half_ a fucking hope. All is black, black, black. My hands find nothing, my heart hammers in my ears, my chest is about to burst and I need to stop resisting. Maybe if I inhale against the hard lock my brain has imposed on my lungs I will find a freedom. If I relax, I can find the way back up to the night sky and the stars. Or maybe there are stars down here? This watery firmament can do me no harm, once I stop trying to find a path through it. The tide will be my guide, and I will go where it wills. Down here in the soothing, easing, endless black I will drift, as Isabella surely drifts too, hands outstretched to find mine... a sea princess just as I am a sea prince.

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I'm going to be away for couple of weeks so the next update won't be right on the heels of this one.


	6. Chapter 6

**Elemental VI**

Hellfuckingdamnation and firebombs. Was I conscious?

I coughed so hard I could even feel the pressure coming out of my _eyeballs_, and my throat was raw. My stomach really hurt. All I could taste was salt, and wherever the shitfuck I was, I didn't want to be there.

Gradually though, I became aware of my surroundings. Everywhere was blue. Jesus - I was underwater. I was fucking dead, and I was submerged in the sea.

But I wasn't. It would be pretty damn cruel if you died and still felt pain, wouldn't it? Everything was blue because, incredibly, I was inside Anthemusa - I recognized it easily, although I hadn't seen it from quite this perspective before. I was flat on my back on the floor, and good-old reliable Captain Jack was sitting cross-legged next to me.

"Edward?" he asked.

"Isabella?" I responded, struggling to rise.

"She's here, she's safe, she's fine," he said, with an arm under my shoulders, helping me upright.

"What the hell happened? How did I get here?"

"I'd just finished locking up and turning the lights off when I heard you shouting outside, and I came after you. I saw Bella fall, and I saw you go in after her, and I ran down and somehow managed to get you out of the water," he answered.

"Then who got Isabella out?" I demanded.

"Help came," he replied. "The whole thing was all a bit of a blur, as you can imagine. Look, here's a blanket, before you freeze."

Taking the blanket from him it occurred to me he'd just saved my life and I was being rude.

"Hey, buddy, I guess I owe you a pretty big debt of gratitude. What you did was brave and heroic, saving two people like that. If you hadn't been so quick, Isabella and I would both still be down there."

"Maybe," he muttered.

"I want to see her," I added, wiping my mouth on my sleeve. Something about his story didn't seem to quite add up, but I knew I wasn't quite thinking straight, and the most important thing was that Isabella was safe. "Where is she?"

He looked at me steadily. "Downstairs."

"This place doesn't have a downstairs. It would be below water-level. Where is she?"

"I'll take you to her. But we need to have a little talk first. There are some things I need to tell you."

I didn't care about what he needed to tell me, because I just wanted to go to Isabella, but I was going to have to listen since I hadn't the faintest idea how to get to her.

Jack led me to a chair, producing a rum bottle from which he poured each of us a generous measure.

"Do you care for Bella?" he asked, unexpectedly.

What a ridiculous question. "Of course I do!" I answered. "I just jumped into the sea after her!"

"Wouldn't you do that for anyone?"

"I don't know - yes, probably. But it wasn't anyone - it was Isabella. I couldn't do nothing, even if it was hopeless. I love her," I said, and as the words left my lips I knew beyond any doubt that they were true. I look up at Jack in wonder, suddenly knowing that I did love Isabella - with a quiet exultation. What would my world be without her in it? Empty, lonely, unbearable.

"Would you be prepared to give things up for her? To live your life differently?" he asked, seeing my expression.

"Yes, yes I would - but what is this all about? Why are you asking me these questions?"

"I'm from Texas, as you would probably have realized. I joined the army at eighteen, and I went up through the ranks quickly. They sent me to Afghanistan, and I saw horrific things - I _did_ horrific things. The experience caused me to have a complete mental breakdown..." he said, eyes gazing into the middle distance now. I was waiting for him to get to the point.

"I came back, and I took the medication the doctors gave me because if I didn't I went into uncontrollable rages, and I was worried I'd harm people. My family weren't safe around me, nobody was, so I hit the road. I just wandered, hitching rides when I could, and walking when there was no other transport, and I was aimless and unthinking. I'd lost my heart, and I knew I'd never care about anything ever again," he continued, and took a swallow of rum.

"And then I came here. I found this little blue place, and I came in and sat down, and I heard what you've heard - I heard those girls sing. They broke me - they broke the hard shell I'd constructed, and they made me feel again, and one of them, Alice, took me to her heart and to her bed, and I'll never go anywhere else ever again. I'll never leave. This place is everything to me, and Alice is my whole world."

"I understand - you love Alice," I agreed. Romantic story, Jack, but -

"Alice can't leave Anthemusa. I stay because I can't take her anywhere with me, and I won't be apart from her. Bella can't leave either. If you want to be with her, you'll have to live here. _Right_ here. You took her to the mountains, didn't you? Edward, Bella can't be away from here for more than a couple of hours, and she can't go further than a hundred miles or so. None of the girls can."

This didn't make sense. "I don't know what you mean," I told him. "Why can't they leave? What's stopping them?"

"You took Bella above sea level, didn't you? And she got sick?" he asked me, speaking slowly.

I nodded. Yes, Isabella got sick - but what was he saying? And how did he know that anyway?

"Isabella needs the sea. She and her sisters all need it - you won't understand until I show you, but she can't be taken from the sea. I used to ask Alice to come back to Texas to meet my family, and she refused for months. When she finally said okay she was so sad about it I didn't know what to think. She wouldn't hear of flying, so we drove, but we'd barely been on the road for an hour before she started to choke and splutter, and I thought she was dying. Sound familiar? We had to come straight back, and her father explained it all to me. Please, take my word for it. You can't take Bella anywhere far from here because it would kill her."

Okay, so the manager of the bar was insanely delusional as a result of PTSD after army service. Either his condition or his meds made him imagine things, and kind Alice loved him anyway. She probably suffered from some sort of delusional condition as well, if the two of them believed that driving any further than the scent of the sea could reach would mean instant death for her. They were perfect for each other.

Whatever, just get me to my girl, who had suffered some sort of severe allergic reaction to something she ate. I still didn't have any proof that she was even still alive, much less all right, and knowing now that Jack was certifiably crazy I was starting to feel extremely agitated. I nodded to him in my impatience, and he seemed to finally register that I didn't want to sit there listening to his cryptic stories. He rose and I followed, through a door and down a set of stairs, and it was dark and cold and smelled very salty, but I wanted Isabella, and he'd said he'd take me to her.

We emerged into what I could only describe as a chamber, and we'd surely descended into the very bowels of the port area. We were right at sea level as evidenced by the fact that this strange room only had half a floor. The sea was actually in here, lapping up to a stone ledge which ran wall to wall, the width of the room. Illuminated by lights in the same color scheme as the bar room, the whole place was bluey-green. In the centre of the stone ledge a broad flight of steps led down into the water, disappearing quickly into the depths.

"Why have you brought me here? What is this place?" I asked, heart sinking to my stomach, suddenly suspicious. More than suspicious - paranoid. Was he some sort of psycho who'd brought me here to kill me? It would be pretty easy with me weakened and chilled, unable to fight back, and him combat trained - all he'd need to do would be to get me to the edge of the stone floor and the sea would do the rest. Oh, concentrate, Cullen, something important is happening here.

"You'll find out in a minute. Look, it wasn't me that saved you tonight. It wasn't me who rescued you - well, I pulled you out of the water, but I didn't go in after you. Bella brought you here," Jack said.

I didn't understand, but one thing registered, in all the confusion. I'd sunk like a stone, back when I leapt off the jetty, yet suddenly I noticed that Jack's hair wasn't wet. Other than damp patches across his front, Jack was barely wet at all. So it must have been true that he hadn't dived in after me.

I'd had enough. I wanted Isabella, and I wanted to go home. With Isabella. And preferably never set foot in this freakshow of a place ever again. Enough of the crazy, thanks Captain Sparrow, time for answers.

"Where is Isabella?" I asked, feeling belligerent.

"She's still recovering. Once she feels completely better, she'll get out, but for now, she's right there," Jack said, pointing behind me.

There was nothing behind me but Poseidon's great swimming pool, I knew that perfectly well.

"Don't fuck with me," I growled at Jack, ready to pull his stupid blond head off. "_Where is Isabella?_"

"Edward," her voice called softly, arresting me before I could take a step towards him. Sure enough, it came from behind me. Weak, tremulous, a little faint - but it was my darling Isabella, I had no doubt whatsoever.

I spun on my heel towards the sound - and NO, please God, _no!_ She was in the water, her pale arms describing arcs around her as she struggled to keep her head above the surface.

Shocked, soaked, scared; I was all of these, but for the second time tonight, I didn't hesitate. I threw myself in after her - into the inky, opaque, fathomless black.

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	7. Chapter 7

**Elemental VII**

I was too trashed to swim. I was too trashed for anything. I flailed around in the water, gulping mouthfuls of it and almost dragging Isabella under in the process. She hadn't been far away and I'd reached her within a heartbeat of diving in, but she'd resisted when I'd wrapped a hand under her chin - and no wonder. I'd turned into some sort of unco-ordinated octopus - arms churning like the blades of a windmill and with no clear idea of how to resolve the situation. I thought I just needed to grab hold of her and drag her to the steps. In the end I clutched her around the ribs, and I knew I was kicking her as I employed a graceless sidestroke back towards the platform.

The whole thing didn't take long - maybe two minutes - before I was sitting on a step, spluttering up brine, with her cradled against my chest, between my knees, and my head bowed over her.

"Isabella, Isabella," I murmured. "I thought I'd lost you. Are you okay? Are you breathing? Please, _please_ be breathing..."

As I'd already done earlier, I scooped a finger into her mouth, checking that it was clear. Fuck knows what I thought I might find in there besides her own teeth and tongue. Then something struck me as my eyes slowly began to focus again, and my brain began to re-engage, as far as it could in these wholly unprecedented circumstances.

I was wearing my clothes - sodden, heavy and clinging, but Isabella was naked. Half in, half out of the water she lay, her upper body partially covered by her beautiful hair. Jesus! What had happened to her down there? A fucking shark attack? Or had she ripped her own clothes off in panic?

Pushing her hair out of the way, I stared at her all over, looking for wounds, or scratches or anything. There wasn't a mark on her. Distantly, part of my mind marveled at her perfection, but most of it continued to be stunned and just not working. She was breathing though, that much I did notice from the even rise and fall of her breast. Even as I heaved a sigh of relief, my heart still lurching, I knew that I had to get her back on dry land. I had to get her warm, and I had to cover her. Jesus! Jack Sparrow was around behind me somewhere, and Isabella's nakedness was not a sight for his eyes.

"Jack! A blanket!" I called, lifting her limp body in my arms as I stood. She weighed no more than a hundred pounds or so - maybe one-ten. Even exhausted, I could bear her easily.

"Edward," Jack's voice came, and I realized he was at my shoulder. "She needs to stay in the water for a while longer. She's suffered quite a trauma."

"Yes, she's suffered trauma all right, you idiot! Where's the blanket you gave me before? Can you pass it to me? And I need somewhere comfortable for her to lie down," I insisted. "And don't you fucking look at her."

I glared angrily at Jack, who wasn't moving to get a blanket, he was putting his hand on Isabella's forehead.

"Dammit, man!" I growled, but he shook his head at me, and repeated urgently, "Edward - take her back into the water. She can't dry out now - it could cause her to overheat. And after being so far above sea-level her lungs are in distress. They could collapse if she lies down. She needs the stability of the water pressure right now to protect her internal organs. Please Edward - I know you don't believe me but I'm deadly serious. She's going to go severely downhill in minutes if you don't do as I say."

A fucking criminally insane fucking war vet was not the person I needed by me right now! As soon as I got out of here with Isabella I was going to find out how to have him arrested or sectioned or whatever it took to have him safely off the streets and locked up.

Still looking wildly about for somewhere to put here I saw couches and chairs against the far wall.

Seeing that I was about to take her there, Jack pulled a hand back, and said, "I'm sorry about this..."

His fist hit me hard before I could take any evasive action, and I staggered, nearly dropping my precious girl. He hit me with the other hand - ambidextrous bastard - and I lost my grip on her. She half slid to the floor, and Jack grabbed her up, running the few steps to the ledge. Out of nowhere, before I could go after him and knock his fucking head off, strong arms grabbed me and I turned, spitting in fury, to see a huge guy who'd been at the bar every time I had, drinking quietly and watching the girls sing.

"Let me the fuck go!" I roared, struggling, and spraying blood from my mouth. I'd lost a tooth, I could tell. I'd lost my temper altogether and was well over half way to losing my mind as well.

"No can do, hero boy," he answered, staying calm despite my struggles. I kneed him straight in the crotch and he grunted, but he maintained his hold. What would it take to get this behemoth off me? I could have screamed in rage and desperation, but even with adrenalin coursing through my system, I was aware his grip was secure, and I was unlikely to break out of it.

"Okay, I'm not fighting you," I relented. "But please - can you help? You can see what's going on here! You don't save a drowning person by throwing them back in... Do something about Isabella, I beg you. Get her away from that madman."

Oh God. Goliath here was probably mad too. I was fucking helpless, caught in an unimaginable nightmare.

Then time just stood still as Isabella's sisters turned up. There they were. One of them was at the door Jack and I had come in by, and she ran, lightly and gracefully, over to where Jack was up to his chest in the water, his arms wrapped around my still unresponsive girl. My love. It was the blonde sister - the tall one, the stunning one with the face usually so still and perfect it looked chiseled. I saw her expression as she passed me, and it was one of concern and fright.

"Bella, Bella, don't leave us," I heard her whisper, and then fuck me dead. She paused there at the edge and took her clothes off, every last stitch. She was magnificent, with the kind of body Tanya had tried to buy. Flawless, pale and divine, she was poised for a millisecond on the brink between the elements, and then she plunged.

That was when I knew I had lost all grip on reality. I wasn't surprised in the slightest when Alice appeared. It seemed natural and obvious that she should emerge, not from a doorway, but from the fucking depths of the fucking sea. First ripples appeared, spreading in circles from a central point where her head surfaced, then she was standing with Jack, her hands held up to Isabella. I couldn't see anything of her below about mid-breast level, but from what I _could_ see, she was naked as well. Of course she was.

The circus of the macabre. I had stumbled unwittingly into an orchestrated circus of the macabre. I had been strung along by people pretending to be normal, when all along, their game had been to unhinge and derail me. For what purpose I had no idea, but their plan had been cunningly crafted and stunningly executed.

I watched dumbly as the blonde sister, and the little dark Alice took hold of Isabella. Jack relinquished her easily, and they drew her further into the water, out into the middle of the chamber, where it was dense and dark, and thick as treacle. They curved around her in a sick ballet, as I caught the occasional flashing glimpse of a white limb breaking the darkness, while the dipping, weaving brightness of the blonde sister's hair mesmerized me. There was no point my trying to do anything, I understood that now. I was still held immobile by the giant, but unnecessarily as a terrible lethargy had overtaken me, a sort of resignation. Now hopeless, I became aware that the girls had started to sing. It was a dirge, slow and haunting. A song to die by.

Oh, dear God, what is this hell I find myself in? Am I to be delivered? Does it matter?

Knowing there wouldn't be any answer, I slumped, ready to collapse.

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I hadn't realized, but there is already a well-known fic called Elemental. I'm going to re-name this when I think of what to call it.

Or, I know! I'll hold a contest! Message me with your title ideas, and the prize will be that my favorite response becomes the name of the story! Yay!

Hit me with your best shot, people!


	8. Chapter 8

**Elemental VIII**

I could hear Isabella's voice, and she was singing for me. Marvel of marvels - the girl who'd said she wouldn't sing in front of anyone was singing one of those old sea shanties to me - something about a sailor being washed up ashore and a girl from a fishing village finding him on the beach and begging him to not to die.

My girl. As if I could die with such a sound in my ears, and such a wish reverberating through me. I struggled back up through the depths, fighting the darkness, fighting the bends, exhausted mentally and emotionally and physically - exhausted at a cellular level, yet summoned by the clarion call of my downfall and my redemption, the fair Isabella.

All that of course was the wanderings and fancies of my deluded brain. Actually I lay with my eyes tight shut, unwilling to even peep, lest I discover some further nightmare awaiting me. I had already been an unwilling participant in a comedy of the grotesque, and I honestly wondered whether this whole ghastly night wasn't some sort of acid flashback, originating from my misspent time at university parties swallowing back tabs with little flowers or smiley faces on them, and losing entire days, wandering lonely as a cloud back in the dark days. Oh God, had the dark days ever stopped? Was I still hovering above the abyss of not knowing myself, not knowing anything, weighed down by parental disapproval and too unsure of myself to stand my own ground? Too willing for self-annihilation so that I didn't have to care about what a failure I was? If I opened my eyes would I be in my teenage bedroom, my mother at the door exhorting me to get up and get ready for school, my father at the breakfast table telling me, "I've looked over your homework Edward, and quite frankly, I'm disappointed"?

I'd rather stay in this half-life with the notes and the tones - and truly the siren's voice was irresistable. You may not understand the words but the meaning is clear. They entice and insist. It's just what they're enticing you _to_ that you don't know. Oblivion?

Struggling with existential angst was far too much trouble for my brain, after the last few hours I'd been through. I imagined myself pulling the plug on my cognition for a while, surrendering to my central nervous system and just processing the information my senses were feeding me.

And so it was I knew I was lying somewhere soft. And so I knew all was quiet and calm around me. And so I knew I was still neat the treacherous sea, but not in it. And so I presumed I was safe.

The first thing I saw was Isabella, anxious and hovering over me. Her fingertips tenderly traced the sweep of my cheek and the outline of my jaw, and she murmured and smiled and she was so familiar and beloved that I relaxed in immediate ease, as though the recent peculiarities hadn't happened.

Murmuring her name, I reached for her, and she came close to me, curling in with her cheek against my chest as my arms curved about her shoulders. Wet, she was, sodden - the glistening gleam of her skin and the tendrils of her hair. Oh, no. The nightmare wasn't going to give me five minutes' peace to re-unite with my love.

"Isabella?"

"I'm here, you're here, and everything is fine. Please, just rest. We both need to rest. Are you warm enough? Will you sleep?" her voice crooned.

"I will sleep if you are with me," I assured her, and her body folded down, her back to my front, allowing me to shape myself around her and hold her, and I slept. I believe I did, with the faint beats of her heart thrumming through her back and on through my ribs, the rise and fall of her within my encircling arm, and the sweet pressure of her against me. I had barely let myself fantasize about this, and here it was, my waking and my sleeping dream.

And floating and adrift in my dream I lifted a hand to smooth her hair back from the line of her centre parting along her temple and behind her ear, and stopped still.

"Isabella?" I asked, not sure now if I was even awake, or half-awake, or half-dead - washed up in that assuredly cursed place all but drowned.

There was something on her scalp, under my fingertips. A set of ridges, above and behind her ear, perhaps a palm's breadth across, hidden by her heavy and luxuriant hair.

"Isabella?"

They were rough and yet smooth, and they trembled to my touch. They were the temperature of her skin. They seemed to pulse.

"Isabella? What's this?"

"I can explain. But you're tired. Rest now, my darling."

No words had ever sounded more luscious. The endearment melted me, and I was entirely incapable of disobeying her. Beloved, you are the Queen of my Heart. Rest? I will. When you've told me why you have what seems like some serious scarring here underneath your hair.

"_Isabella_?"

She twisted in my arms, and as I felt her twist I was galvanized. She was naked. Glory be to God, of course, she had been naked when I saw her in the water - and I had had her in my arms and pressed to me and not realized it? My fingertips skimmed the curve of her breasts, and across the delicate indentures of her ribs and then had no option but to follow where her waist led in a dizzy sweep to her hips and across her surprisingly generous backside. Fuck me. Oh, Jesus. Fuck me three times.

She sighed so fucking sweetly, and my hands seemed to have found their final resting place. I was ready to die.

"Edward, you must be wondering a few things..."

I was. I was wondering if she'd mind my tongue in her ear, and my thigh between both of hers, and my thumb on her nipple. I was wondering if I was delirious and hoping I'd never recover, and wondering if it could be permanent that she and I could lie in a wet tangle indefinitely, except that I would like to be just as naked as her, and Christ - what was it? There were one or two things that needed clearing up, but surely they could wait, if she would let me kiss her, and if she would kiss me back.

"Edward."

She was sitting up, my Isabella. Hips tilted, her weight to one side, and legs stretched out to the other side. Nude, unclothed, naked as a jaybird, emerald in this weird light, glowing, unearthly and radiant. Droplets fell from her eyelashes over her cheekbones and down. Rivulets ran from curling locks of her hair and fell in damp mint sapphire cascades over her shoulders and over her breasts. My mouth gaped open as a drip collected itself on one perfect nipple and splashed to her knee below. She withstood my stare, my eyes pursuing water that flowed down her abdomen towards the dark, inky triangle between her thighs.

Well, I was effectively robbed of speech. And breath. And all my faculties. I didn't know what stunned me more. While Tanya's breasts had been round and tight as oranges - Isabella's hung. Tanya's belly had been concave - Isabella's was gently curved. Tanya's vulva had been bare - Isabella's was lush with glossy curls.

But it wasn't only Tanya who'd been primped and styled - it was every girl I'd met before. In contrast, Isabella was so earthy, and womanly and _natural_ I wanted to bury my face in her and never, ever come up for air.

Except, she wasn't quite natural - was she? Either I'd lost my mind, or none of this was real.

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